On the day I turned twenty, I gathered my courage and confessed to Ethan. He called security to restrain me, then personally sent me to a conversion center for “treatment.” After half a year of forced treatment, he told me he was afraid to “come out,” but that he loved me… When I was ten, the Bennett family adopted me, and my foster parents treated me very well, raising me like I was the center of the world… The glaring sunlight made my eyes ache, and I instinctively blocked the light, my eyes stinging as I took a long time to recover. Facing the empty road, I realized he had not come to pick me up, so it seemed he really was sick of me. After he learned about my feelings, he had security clamp down on both my arms and told my foster parents, then drove me to the conversion center. The forced treatment was like living in darkness, with torture, electric shocks, and drugs… After half a year of inhuman treatment, I did not want to go near him again, but my foster parents asked me to come home for a visit, and I could not cut off more than ten years of family affection. I stood hesitantly at the villa entrance, took a deep breath, and told myself I was home. In reality, the moment I stepped through the Bennett family’s front door, I feared this familiar place and forced myself not to let my legs go weak and collapse. After taking a deep breath, I walked inside, only to bump into a wall, and when I saw the black leather shoes, I stiffly raised my head and met the eyes of the person who made my scalp go numb. “Ethan…” I was about to greet him, but acid churned in my stomach, and my knees could not hold me up as I weakly fell to the floor, because whenever I saw him, I thought of those six months of forced treatment and was too afraid to go near him. “You look like a dog right now.” Ethan Bennett had both hands in his pockets as he looked down at my sorry state with an arrogant expression, his voice indifferent while the end of his tone rose faintly. “Tsk, if you had the guts to lust after me, then you had to bear the consequences, and it seems the forced treatment worked pretty well.” “It was my fault. I never should have had those thoughts about you…” I could not stand, so I curled up and crawled backward on my knees, because Ethan Bennett was far beyond my reach, and I had been delusional to try to get close to him. I crushed my last fantasy, my heart trampled to pieces by him, my breathing hard, and tears slid down uncontrollably as I wiped them messily with my sleeve, not daring to dirty the Bennett family’s floor. “The person you should apologize to isn’t me. Mom and Dad loved you so much. How could you face them?” He walked up to me and crouched down, and beneath his loose bangs, those seductive eyes were full of pity. “Should I stay farther away from you? Look at you, like a dead fish.”
My throat clogged, and I looked at him in disbelief as a numb pain swept through my whole body, making me tremble all over, while he gave a nasty little laugh and stepped back away from me. “Lee.” I gasped for breath and saw my foster mother walking over with red-rimmed eyes, while my foster father still wore a stern face that revealed no emotion. “You’re not eating on time again, and you’re getting thinner and thinner.” My foster mother held my hand with heartache as she nagged me, then hugged me tightly. The faint grassy scent on her surrounded the tip of my nose, and it was the scent unique to my foster mother. My fingertips trembled as I returned her hug, suppressing the urge to throw up from being touched, because I knew I had to tell them that I had been completely “cured.” “Mom, Dad, I’m sorry…” I knelt on the ground, pressed my palms to the floor, and kowtowed hard, the small stones on the ground slicing my skin as my lips trembled and I shouted loudly, “I shouldn’t like men… I was possessed before and fell for Ethan. I’m sorry, Mom and Dad…” After apologizing, my tears fell uncontrollably again, and I desperately kowtowed to prove that I had been “cured.” My foster mother hugged me and patted my back with concern. “It’s okay. A good child admits his mistakes and corrects them. Let’s go home.” My foster father frowned and snorted coldly, turning his head away. “Look at what you spoiled him into. What does he even look like now?” “Lee has changed now, so stop wearing that awful expression!” My foster mother looked me up and down with heartache. “Mom will make you soup so you can nourish yourself properly, and you have to eat well.” “Dad, I’ve corrected myself. Please forgive me.” I hunched my shoulders, crawled to my foster father’s feet on my knees, and kowtowed hard, hitting the floor until I felt dizzy. My foster father let out a long sigh, but in the end, his heart softened and he helped me up, then dusted me off. “We’re a family! It’s fine as long as you correct your mistakes. You will always be our child.” I nodded hard, then looked at Ethan Bennett, who had become part of the background and said nothing, and while holding back my fear and nausea, I bowed to him at ninety degrees. “Ethan, I’m sorry. I was possessed and did something wrong.” Ethan Bennett stepped forward, his strong body less than a foot from mine, and he patted my shoulder, lifted my palm, frowned, and said lightly, “Since the treatment worked, live properly and don’t disappoint Mom and Dad.”
After receiving their forgiveness, I returned to the Bennett family home and resumed life there, and the days were just like before. When I stepped through the door and returned to the room where I used to live, I lay on the bed and looked at the familiar decorations, still feeling a sense of unreality. I always woke up in the middle of the night, cold sweat sticking to my clothes so stickily that it made me sick, and I always dreamed that I was sleeping in a damp, cold basement, where the dog chain locked around my neck only tightened more the harder I struggled. I wanted to start over as a person, find a job, and live normally, but my high school diploma was too low for me to even qualify for interviews, so I found a cleaning job from an ad on a utility pole. “Mr. Bennett, welcome. We’re honored to have you here for guidance.” When I heard the boss’s hearty laugh, I silently moved the water bucket aside and continued kneeling to wipe the floor. The sound of conversation grew closer and closer. I turned my face away, knelt in the corner of the office with my head lowered, and prayed that he would not see me. The sound of leather shoes stopped, and when I saw those polished black leather shoes diagonally behind me, that burning gaze made all the hair on my body stand up, and every time I turned my head, I could feel Ethan Bennett’s anger. “Mr. Bennett? Is there something you’re not satisfied with?” The manager hesitated and looked at the clean, tidy floor, wondering if there was a problem with the new cleaner. “Liam Bennett, is this the so-called good job you found?” Ethan Bennett’s voice came slowly from behind me with a bone-chilling coldness, and I lowered my head as my body trembled. “I… don’t know you…” I lowered my head, carried the water bucket, hunched my back, and tried to leave. “You don’t know me? Liam Bennett, you’ve really grown bold.” Ethan Bennett forcefully grabbed my wrist, water splashing all over the floor, and he pinched the back of my neck with his left hand, forcing me to look straight at him. “Come back with me!” I lowered my head to look at the tips of my shoes, not daring to meet his eyes, which were filled with anger and disappointment, and when our skin touched at such close range, the burning sensation in my stomach made me feel so sick that I wanted to vomit, while every inch of flesh seemed to tear with pain. “Ethan, I still have to keep working, so don’t delay me…” I lowered my head, my fine hair covering my brows and eyes, and resisted in a small voice as I tried to shake him off. I failed. “Delay you? You’re the young son of the Bennett family, and you’re working as a cleaner. What do you think outsiders will say? Will you only be happy if you make the Bennett family a joke? Are you really that cheap?” Ethan Bennett questioned me in anger, and the force around my wrist gradually tightened. I could not argue back, and my whole body went cold as my lips trembled and I bowed. “I’m sorry… Ethan, I didn’t mean to embarrass you…” He did not have the patience to listen, and in front of everyone, he grabbed my arm, dragged me downstairs, shoved me into the passenger seat, started the car, and left.
When we arrived at the Bennett house, he forcibly dragged me in and threw me into the bathtub, and when I struggled to stand, he turned on the shower and drenched me from head to toe, the cold water soaking my clothes until they clung to my body, cold and miserable. “Ethan… I know I was wrong. Please don’t do this…” I was so cold that I shivered and curled up, wanting to step out of the bathtub, but what came next was cold water hitting me head-on. He stood right in front of me, as if I were something “dirty,” and as if the cold water could wash me clean, while water blurred my eyes so badly that I could only hug myself and gradually curl into the corner of the tub. “Your apologies are so cheap!” Ethan Bennett snorted coldly, but he grabbed my collar in a rage, his nose inches from mine, and the woody scent of lemon and tea lingered around him. “Ugh…” I shoved him away hard, knelt over the bathtub drain, and dry-heaved until all the acid came out, while the fiery burning sensation in my stomach made me miserable. “Seeing me makes you so sick you want to throw up? After electroshock treatment, your acting skills have gotten better and better. Should I give you an award?” Ethan Bennett grabbed the loose hair over my forehead and lifted my head, his eyes filled with red veins as he forced our gazes to meet. “I… Ethan… I’m sorry.” My tears slid down in big drops, but I could not control myself. “That cleaner uniform is an eyesore. Take it off and throw it away!” Before I could react, Ethan Bennett grabbed the collar and sleeve cuffs and tore them, making the buttons pop off. I wanted to stop him, but he was too strong, and being so close to him made my stomach churn violently. After the cleaner uniform was torn apart, he held the scraps of fabric and looked at me with a frown. “Wasn’t the forced treatment only electroshock?” After hesitating and pausing, he asked, and there was a little more pity in his voice. I wrapped my arms around myself to cover my ruined body, lowered my head, and curled up, not wanting to expose myself to win sympathy. That pitying gaze of his was probably because he had seen my scars, with every inch of skin covered in wounds, whip marks all over my back, a rough wound on my stomach messily stitched with thread that extended to my thigh, all kinds of cigarette burns on my arms, and the words I’m sorry carved into my calf with glass… I had escaped from that “hell” countless times, only to be caught and brought back every time, and once a month there was a chance to contact family, so I hoped Ethan Bennett would come take me away, but the call never went through… The price of running away was punishment ten times or a thousand times worse, and they locked me in the basement, covered the walls with photos of Ethan Bennett, pressed down on my legs and forced my eyes wide open, hurt me and violated me, and those hands were so dirty… I was no longer clean, Ethan… I no longer had the courage or strength to love you.
Ethan Bennett’s warm fingertips gently brushed over every inch of my scars, and I felt that warmth, but I still curled up and did not want to face him. “Lee, I was wrong.” Ever since I confessed, he had never called me by my nickname again, and the warm memories of the past played in my mind like a movie. I trembled and tried to move away from him, tears dripping down uncontrollably. “Lee, I shouldn’t have sent you in for forced treatment. I didn’t realize my own feelings… I love you… Can you forgive me…” Ethan Bennett touched my wet hair as he confessed to me. I had thought he sent me to treatment because he was “homophobic,” but in the end, he loved me. “Lee, we can start over. I’ll treat you well.” He draped a bath towel over me, carried me back to the bed, and gently, carefully wiped away my tears as he spoke in a soft voice. “Ethan… I can’t start over…” I pulled the towel around my body and refused his touch. Ethan Bennett stared at me with red eyes, and after pressing his lips tightly together in silence, he said, “There’s nothing that can’t be started over. I’ll book you the best therapist and find the best doctors. Everything can be fixed. I’ll handle Mom and Dad. We can move to another city, forget all these unhappy things, and, Lee, can you love me one more time?”
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